Did you know that the Tom and Jerry series that decorated our childhood, won seven Academy Awards for the Best Animated Short Film category? This achievement made it the most trophy-winning cartoon series along with Disney’s Silly Symphony (1929-1939). The seven-minute average duration is indeed the perfect container for his imaginative slapstick series. Best Movie Site
29 years after the first feature-length feature film (which made Tom and Jerry speak, received a negative response from critics, as well as a flop in the market), comes this hybrid animation by director Tim Story (Barbershop, Taxi, Fantastic Four), which, although it has not yet matched. The creativity of 114 short animated titles by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, which will not enliven any awards event, is able to bring back the memories of the fans a little.
Of course, the chase action of Tom and Jerry, who this time created chaos in New York, was not enough to fill the 101 minutes. So the script by Kevin Costello (Brigsby Bear) adds the character Kayla (Chloë Grace Moretz), a young girl who has the ambition to achieve success in a big city. For her dream, Kayla stole someone else’s CV, then dared to register as part of the Royal Gate Hotel team, in planning a luxurious wedding between two celebrities, Ben (Colin Jost) and Preeta (Pallavi Sharda), which would involve drones, elephants, tigers, and so on. . Top Movie
The crazy wedding plans to the dislike of Terence (Michael Peña) as his boss, apparently not the end of the hurdle. Kayla still has to deal with Tom and Jerry’s fight, which could potentially cause chaos on D-Day. At first glance, Kayla’s story does not match the world of Tom & Jerry, which in general, is almost devoid of human characters, let alone the center of the story. But Moretz is a versatile actress, capable of immersing herself in the antics of the cartoon world. Not only Moretz, all performers, including Peña, are skilled at interacting with animated figures.
Apart from the talents of the players, his hybrid style also helps smooth the union of the two worlds. The story establishes a “rule” whereby all the animals are rendered animated, creating the understanding that this is how the animals in the film world are. The hybrid animation is colorful, attractive, and when the energy of the director (as a fan of the series) is added, the audience’s eyes are made to stick to absurdities on the screen, call it “animal tornado” typical of “Sunday morning cartoons”.
At some point, even after getting an additional story about Kayla, the plot has indeed reached a saturation point. Naturally, given that there is not much variety or exploration material. Even his anti-hate message will be quite difficult to convey to the child audience, considering that no matter how many times the two reconcile, in the end Tom and Jerry will become enemies again.
But the series of actions with slapstick full of violence that used to often spark controversy, injected enough energy. Meanwhile, some familiar sights, such as the appearance of a demon and angel beside Tom’s ear, as well as supporting characters such as Spike the bulldog (Bobby Cannavale) to Butch the wild cat (Nicky Jam), will evoke nostalgia for the old audience. As a result, similar to the durability of the franchise, although at times it seems tiring and repetitive at the same time, the charm never really dies. Movie Review